Crimson
by lonewolf352
Summary: Fire team Crimson embarks on a mission to uncover information on Promethean technology that goes horribly wrong. They are forced to fight their way out of an ambush and are captured during their attempt to escape back to the Infinity.
1. Crimson

**Halo is owned by Microsoft Game Studios and 343 Industries. This is just the start I will add to it as I have the time.**

Sergeant Warren watched his motion tracker as he and the other members of fire team crimson formed a security perimeter as they disembarked from their special operations pelican gunship. The tracker showed the area within two hundred meters as being clear, but he did a visual check anyway, it wouldn't be the first time equipment failed to pick something up. The only thing you can trust is your own eyes he thought to himself. Lt Reaves signaled the team forward and they fell into a diamond around him, Warren took his spot in the lead and tightened his grip on his DMR, or designated marksmen rifle.

The mission was supposed to be a simple smash and grab op, go in shoot some baddies grab the target or Intel and get out. If the luck previous ops of this campaigns was repeated, they were going to be in for a hell of a fight. The Prometheans always seemed to know just where to be and when to show up. The team advanced quickly up a rocky slope towards the compound that supposedly contained information on the teleportation grid, such as how to access it so that we could use it to surprise our enemies for a change, rather than the other way around. Warren was fully expecting this to be another wild goose chase through corridors filled with Prometheans or covenant warriors.

They reached the top of the ridge without meeting any resistance and the motion tracker was still showing the all clear, but Warren couldn't shake the feeling that something was terribly wrong. His instincts were screaming to him as he methodically scanned the area with his rifle as he continued to advance towards the entrance of the forerunner structure. It almost seemed to have grown out the cliff face, it was elegantly designed with a series of gently sloping ramps leading up to the doors, which were easily ten meters tall.

The team finally reached the doorway after what seemed to be an eternity, the only sounds being their armored boots on the metallic plating and the Spartans breathing into their mics. Reaves gestured again, maintaining radio silence and Carson, their tech specialist advanced to the doors control panel and proceeded to attempt to open the door. His fingers were buzzing across the holographic panel with a practiced ease, they had done dozens of ops like this so far. Thankfully none of them had yet to be killed or injured in the series of ambushes and major engagements they could never seem to avoid, not that they really tried to. They were Spartans after all, they lived for the fight, and the Spartans of Crimson team were some of the best, even though they were the least experienced fire team on the UNSC Infinity. They had been assigned to the ship to replace a team that had been killed in a promethean ambush.

A small blip suddenly popped into existence on Warren's tracker and then disappeared just as quickly it signified motion fifty meters to his left. He and one of the other Spartans whirled to face that way, there was nothing there. Warren caught the LT's attention and signaled that something was moving out there, the LT silently acknowledged by clicking his mic. Warren steadied his heart calming himself down preparing for a fight. The feeling of unease was continuing to grow.

Then the holographic control for the door chirped and the giant doors slid silently open, revealing a long downward sloping hallway that leveled about six hundred meters past the entrance, nothing was visible past that. They group quickly and quietly reassembled into a closed diamond and began to move down the hallway, their weapons held at the ready. The passage was eerily quiet as they reached the bottom of the downward slope, they all glanced at each other, each of them was feeling the same apprehension, something was severely wrong. Warren slowly continued to advance and the rest of the team followed suit. Barely another hundred meters in, they came upon another, much smaller door, which he reached up and keyed open.

He stepped through and veered left into a large open room with ramps on the outer walls leading up to a large platform above their heads and another door was on top of a ramp across from them. They spread through the room, quickly and carefully clearing the room before they proceeded to the other door. This time the Lt opened the door and was the first one through. Once again the six Spartans cleared this next room, which was smaller and had a ramp on either side, both leading to a platform in front of them with yet another doorway. The team split and three of them went up each ramp, the last two carefully watched their backs using both their trackers and visual checks.

They stepped through this next door to find a small room with nothing but a forerunner terminal in the center. Carson hurried over to it and began to set up a link between it and the Infinity's A.I. Their intelligence officer was just opening up communications to let them know that he had a feed from the terminal when all of their communications went suddenly dead.

"Infinity, this is Crimson over." Reaves said, breaking the radio silence. After a few seconds of silence he said "Shit. Well I guess we are on our own…"

"CONTACT!" Warren cried out as his motion tracker suddenly registered movement literally everywhere around him, there was well over a hundred individual signatures filling the rooms they had passed through to get there. They all readied their weapons and began to turn towards the door as a promethean knight suddenly materialized out of thin area and began to fire at them with its Promethean scattergun. Warren's shields flared, stopping the first two rounds as he swung his DMR up and repeatedly pulled the trigger. Every member of the team opened fire at the same time, filling the room with the overwhelming sound of assault rifle fire.

The knights shields lit up and failed, and then the armor piercing rounds tore through it, the machine then dissolved into the air, leaving nothing but a smoking pile and its weapon. "MOVE!" reaves commanded and they immediately went back through the door and the previous room they had been in was filled with promethean crawlers. The team opened up with their weapons, the heavy rounds of Warren's DMR tore through the small machines like they were made of cloth. In just a few seconds, the team had wiped out dozens of the things. They rushed up to the next door and opened it, then they froze. The entirety of the massive central room was filled with Prometheans all pointing weapons towards the door.

"Shit!" Warren cried as they team all dived out of the way and hundreds of rounds smashed into the wall and floors where they had been standing less than a second before. He rolled behind a small metal pylon and reached down to his belt and removed a grenade. He took a deep breath, and looked at his motion tracker. There was a group of close to a dozen hostiles moving towards his position. When they reached to ten meters on the other side of his cover, Warren pulled the grenades pin and hurled at the group and quickly hid behind the pylon again. The ground shook when the explosive detonated and all but one of the blips disappeared off of his tracker. The Spartan ran along the outer wall and shot the last crawler from his attackers as he went. It had been limping around in a circle, both of its right legs blown off.

He glanced at his tracker to see that the rest of the team was finishing off their first sets of enemies as he reached a ramp leading up towards the central platform. As he rounded a corner at the top of the ramp, a watcher appeared and opened fire on him. The rounds splashed harmlessly against his shields and he quickly dispatched the flying Promethean with three rounds from his rifle. He looked around him and there wasn't any more hostiles on his platform but he could see dozens more running around on the lower levels battling his fellows. He ran up the last ramp to the central platform and stopped dead in his tracks, there was three promethean knights waiting for him.

Warren dived backwards down the ramp and tossed a grenade all in one fluid motion. The grenade detonated as he slid to a halt at the base of the ramp. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He then quickly hopped to his feet and advanced back up the ramp to finish them off. Two were already gone so he dropped his sights onto the thirds face and fired four times, the machine dissolved away and he scanned the platform for more targets. It was clear, so he moved over to the edge and looked down at the fight raging below, the Spartans were being pushed back into a corner under the superior firepower of dozens of Prometheans. "Here I go again." He muttered to himself as he lined up his crosshairs on the back of a watcher. He was aiming for a small device that was supposedly how they flew through the air and opened fire. It took two rounds to bring down its shields and the third struck the device causing the watcher to fall slamming into the metal floor.

Warren continued firing, taking out any targets of opportunity he could in support of his fellows. The promethean attack slowed as they were being killed from behind, which gave Reaves the ability to press back against the machines. He and the other four down on the main level rushed forward, firing rapid yet accurate shots from their battle rifles and assault rifles. In just a couple minutes the team swept the room of all resistance. The six regrouped by the door to the final hallway before they would reach the exit, and hopefully be able to call an extraction bird.

Summer, the teams sniper was the first through the door and they quickly moved back up to the ramp leading to the exit. They were carefully watching for anything on their motion trackers and Carson had his battle armor performing an active scan for promethean energy signatures.

The Spartans reached the ramp and then the exit doorway without further incident and as soon as the door opened, they dashed out and took cover. No enemy fire came out and they scanned the complex security, nothing. Reaves signaled the team forward. Chang, the teams demolitions expert, took point and as he stood to move forward there was a loud sizzling noise and a light rifle round arched out from a ridge across from them and burned straight through his shields. He crumpled to the ground, a smoking hole being all that was left of his face plate.

The air was suddenly filled with Promethean weapons fire as their motion trackers showed hundreds more contacts materialize in the path to the LZ. "Break contact!" Reaves commanded and sprinted off to the teams right and to a thin path through ridges around the facility. After they had taken cover behind a cluster of rocks, they looked back to see the machines swarming all over their fallen comrade. Reaves silently signaled for them to continue down the path. They immediately complied, a testament to their training and discipline as he stayed back to remotely set the self-destruct in Chang's armor. They couldn't allow Prometheans or covenant to get a hold of one of humanity's greatest weapons. He stared at the body for less than a second as he took off up the hill with the rest of his team.

They took cover on the opposite side of the ridge and the ground shook with the tremendous blast of a fusion battery detonating and the sky flashed brighter despite the bright artificial light of the shield world. Their trackers showed no more movement outside of the facility. The Prometheans had been annihilated.


	2. Thorne

Thorne

The Spartans walked swiftly through the desert, trying to get as far from the Forerunner facility as they possibly could. They were all in shock over Chang's death, they were a close knit team, they were a family. He had been the heart of the team, he had been a close friend of all of them. Whenever they were on hard times such as a friend was killed or an op had gone south, he had been there to crack a joke to lighten the mood. Chang had always had something good to say about everyone.

Reaves had been trying to regain contact with the Infinity for the last few hours as they had walked, they needed to get off of Requiems surface as soon as possible. Preferably before they got ambushed again. They were all beginning to run low on ammunition after the fight in the facility and none of them had slept or eaten in almost three days. They were exhausted from the constant missions and fighting. Warren was on point as the team's recon specialist. He was two hundred meters ahead of them watching for threats and thinking to himself. What could he have done to save Chang? Try as he might, he couldn't deny that there was nothing any of them could have done, they had been taken completely by surprise once again thanks to Requiems teleportation network.

"Fire team crimson this is Spartan Miller do you read?" the team froze as Miller's voice burst through the static in their radios.

"This is LT Reaves, I read you, over."

"Finally, Roland and I were beginning to worry. We are reading you as being out in the desert to the west of the objective is that correct?"

"Affirmative, we were ambushed and were forced to withdraw, and Miller?"

"What is it crimson?"

"Chang didn't make it. A promethean sniper killed him." Reaves responded grimly.

"I'm sorry to hear that crimson. I know you probably want evac right now but Spartan Thorne went missing approximately one hour ago at a location three klicks from your position. Commander Palmer needs a team to search for him and you are the only team not already engaged. I'm sorry but we need you to move to that location and see what you can find." Miller informed them.

"Affirmative Crimson is Oscar mike. We'll see what we can do, we've lost too many Spartans already." Reaves replied. No matter how exhausted his team was, Spartans never left a man behind if there was any chance they were still alive. His team would do everything in their power to find Thorne, who was from team Majestic. Their new mission coordinates popped up on his heads up display, which he then transmitted to Warren. "Warren, you're on point, find us a route."

"Roger that." Warren replied as he cleared his thoughts away, preparing himself for the mission. Thanks to his experience as an ODST then his training as a Spartan IV, he had developed an uncanny ability to shut himself down and become almost like a machine, locking away everything but the mission. It was how he coped with the loss of dozens of friends over the years and still managed to do his job.

Warren looked at a topographic map of the area and quickly found a pass that would take them straight to the objective. He flashed the image to Reaves and when he gave the approval, Warren began to lead the team on. While he walked, he did another check of his ammunition, he still had three spare mags for his DMR, and one half mag in the weapon. For the assault rifle on his back and the magnum on his hip he still had four spare for each. It was enough for a skirmish with the enemy, but not likely to be enough for an extended engagement. If the enemy had a presence at the objective, he might not have a choice but to scavenge weapons off of them.

It took the team of Spartans just fifteen minutes to cover the distance to the objective, which was slow for the elite soldiers in their powered armor. It was both due to the fact that they were all exhausted and were being extra cautious to avoid another ambush. Not that there was much they could do if the Prometheans were to teleport to their location again. They slowly advanced over the last crest of the pass to see a plateau in front of them, it was covered in covenant and weapons emplacements. There was a mix of shade turrets and a single wraith tank positioned at the base of the only path up to the top, which was the last known position of Spartan Thorne.

"All right, Summer find a position to provide fire support and kill the shade gunners, Warren, you and are going to find a way to take out that tank, the rest of you focus on taking out the infantry got it?" The team acknowledged his command and silently moved to follow his orders. It was all the instruction they needed, they would find their own way to perform their tasks.

As the rest moved into position, Warren and Reaves silently moved around through the rocks until they came to the cover the shortest distance from the Wraith. "Sir I have an idea. If Summer takes out the gunner, I can get in close and take that bastard out if you will give it something to shoot at." Warren stated.

Reaves thought for a second before he replied. "All right we'll do that. Summer, on my go I need you to target the gunner on the tank before engaging the Shades roger?"

"Can do." She replied. Warren that even before she answered she had likely already sighted in on her target, she was the most lethal sniper he had ever seen. He readied a grenade as the rest of the team finished moving into position for the attack.

"Engage!" Reaves called out over the comm and before he had finished the single word they were all moving, Summer was the first to react and her sniper round blew straight through the Elite gunners shields, splattering his blood and brain matter all over the main weapon of the tank. Reaves took off running to his left and the wraith driver turned to track him, firing massive balls of plasma high into the air which crashed into the ground well behind the Spartan.

Warren took off at a dead sprint, his active camouflage flashing to life, it was barely able to function at the speed he was moving but he was counting on it concealing him enough that he might be missed during the furious fight that was now raging. He rapidly closed the distance and took a running leap and landed right on top of the vehicle, dropping his grenade into the main weapon as he kept running and leapt off the rear of the tank. Just as the main gun was building a charge, the frag detonated causing it to blow the entire wraith to pieces.

Warren rolled to his feet and raised his DMR towards the base of the path, his fellows had already reached it and were locked in a furious firefight with the covenant troops. He and Reaves both rushed forward to join the fight. As Warren rounded a large rock he came face to face with an Elite field Marshall. He fired off three rounds which were all absorbed by its shields before the alien tackled him to the ground began raining blows down on his helmet. His shields flowed and began to fail under the powerful hits, just as they were about to completely die, the Spartan managed to get his combat knife free, which he jammed straight up through the Elite's mandibles and into his head. The Elite slumped on top of him, and Warren threw the creature off as he rose to his feet. He looked around to see that his team mates had cleared the ramp of all hostiles, grunts, jackals, and elites lay dead all over the ground in pools of their own blood and gore.

Summer came trotting up to Warren and nodded, looking down at the dead Field Marshall at his feet. "Nice job, I tried to shoot the bastard but I couldn't get a clear shot."

"It's quite all right." He replied as he checked his tracker, there was only a handful of blips up on top of the plateau, not enough to be an actual threat.

"Let's move." Reaves commanded and they quickly advanced up to the top where they dispatched the last few aliens, there was no sign of Thorne. "Infinity, this is Crimson, Spartan Thorne is not here, do you have further Intel on a possible location?"

"Maybe. There is a small UNSC firebase down in the valley to the north. He may have relocated to that position to avoid the covenant. There is also an ammo cache there that was abandoned on our last voyage to Requiem." Roland, the ships A.I. reported.

"You heard him, get to that position and investigate, there is a possible covenant presence there as well. If so they are likely preparing for you. You won't have the element of surprise this time." Miller told them.

"Roger we will be all right, on the move." Reaves motioned the team forward towards the nav beacon that popped up on their HUD's. Once again, Warren lead the way, this time he walked right up to the edge of the ridge opposite from the path up and slid down the steep slope, the other four followed suit. They skidded to a halt at the bottom and immediately set off towards their next objective which was eight hundred meters away. They ran across the sand and rocks and stopped when they saw a covenant defense line blocking their path. There was a shade turret, three elites and a squad of grunts.

The Spartans spread out and rushed the hostile position firing their weapons as they went. Plasma from the shade plowed the ground around them and struck Warren's shield. Summer dropped into a crouch and sighted in. With the loud crack of her sniper rifle, the grunt operating the turret fell out if its seat. An elite screamed a cry of anger and rushed towards her with an energy sword in hand. Before she could take a shot, Warren leapt on top of the alien began struggling to take its weapon. He slammed his fist against the elites shields repeatedly until they flared and died, he quickly wrapped up the elites arm and broke it at the elbow. The alien screamed in agony as he snatched up its weapon and drove it through its chest.

Summer turned away and saw the rest of the team mopping up the rest of the covenant troops. The Spartans silently advanced past the dead aliens and came up to an edge overlooking the UNSC firebase. It was a series of walkways and platforms with multiple machine guns ringing it and the entire area was covered with aliens.

The Spartans scattered when the loud sound of Wraith tank releasing a plasma mortar echoed through the valley. Warren looked back and saw the round turn the sand where they had been standing to glass. He and Summer rushed down a path to the left and they saw the source of the mortar. IT was a wraith being guarded by a squad of jackals and grunts. The Wraith was readying another mortar as one of the grunts fired a fuel rod canon at the two Spartans. They dived to the side and the round exploded, causing their shields to flare. Summer aimed and fired, all while still rolling on the ground. The heavy round sliced through the grunts abdomen. The small alien squealed and dropped its weapon the rest of the grunts scattered screaming in fear. The pair rushed the enemy position firing at the jackals as they went. Any jackal that was not protected by one of their large arm shields died very quickly. Summer threw a grenade which landed behind the shielded jackals and detonated. Most of the group was blown to pieces and the Spartans finished off the remaining few and turned their attention to the tank. The both dashed to the side as the vehicle came flying towards them, the pilot trying to run them down.

As the tank sailed past him, Warren ran to where the now dead grunt had dropped his fuel rod gun and hefted the heavy weapon as if it was a toy. He sighted in on the reactor at the rear of the tank and fired. The green round slammed into the tank detonating and causing the tank to crash to the ground and the tank was engulfed in plasma, the two alien crew was disintegrated.

While they had been fighting the tank, the rest of the team had slid down the slope to the outpost and were engaged in a furious firefight with a dozen elites. Reaves took a shot at one of them with his battle rifle, the burst slammed into the creatures shields and they failed under the powerful rounds. The elite roared in anger and was quickly silenced by a burst of fire from Carson's assault rifle. He creature fell and its blood began to soak the sand. Carson tossed a grenade at a second elite, which dived to the side but the explosive still knocked out it's shields, this time it was Reaves' turn to finish it off, a burst from his weapon tore through the alien's head. Harrison, the team's assault specialist/medic slipped out of cover and was tackled by an elite. The Alien planted a large foot on his chest, pinning him down and began to fire down on him.

Before the covenant soldier could burn through his shields, a round from a sniper rifle blew through the elite's shield and his head exploded, spraying blood all over the container Harrison was using for cover. Summer then proceeded to shoot any elite unwise enough to rush the team's position.

While she was splattering alien brains into Requiem's sand, Warren had continued down the path. He had taken out a second group of covenant, this time having been a pair of jackal snipers on a floating platform and a large group of grunts, they had fallen quickly under his rifle fire. He continued moving down the slope until he was in a position flanking the remaining few elite's cover. He took careful aim and fired repeatedly at the closest elite. The alien's shields died and he fell with a rifle round through its head. The remaining two elites turned and began to return fire. Plasma rounds slammed into the ground around where he lay in the prone. He loaded up his last magazine for his DMR. Then he shot and killed one of the elite's, then another shot from Summer's sniper rifle finished off the other.

The team quickly regrouped at the firebase and scoured it for signs of the missing Spartan. There was nothing pointing to what had happened to the soldier from fire team Majestic. "Miller, there is no sign of Thorne anywhere. Do you have anything else?" Reaves reported up to the Infinity.

"Negative….Hold on wait one…" Miller went silent for a moment. "Crimson there is an abandoned ammo dump two hundred meters from your current position, you need to rearm immediately there is numerous covenant troops on the move to your position. It's going to get real busy real quick down there."

"Roger Infinity." Reaves turned to his team "You heard him get moving!" The five Spartans sprinted around a bend in the valley and they found a cluster of weapons crates and warthog. They hurriedly moved to the crates and grabbed as much ammo as they could carry. "Carson, Harrison, the three of us are going to man this hog and stay mobile. Warren, Summer, you two do what you do best." The LT instructed them as they saw multiple covenant drop ships show up on their scanners.

Reaves hopped into the driver's seat of the vehicle and Carson hopped up on the gun, leaving Harrison to jump up into the passenger seat with the rocket launcher he had picked up. Warren and Summer dashed off and took cover in a cluster of boulders as the hog took off across the sand and the first of the covenant Phantoms began to offload their troops. Carson depressed the triggers for the turret and shredded a group of jackals and grunts as they leapt off of their troop ship. The drop ship closest to Warren and Summer dropped off another squad lead by two elite's, straight into their rifle fire. The two elite's dropped first quickly followed by the grunts.

The fight carried on like that for another ten minutes, the covenant drop ships would drop off their troops, which would in turn get dropped by the Spartans. Then a phantom dropped a wraith off onto the ridge above them, which began to hurl plasma mortars into the air, which came down almost on top of Warren and Summer's position. Reaves drove the hog up on to the ridge, giving Harrison a shot with the rocket launcher. He fired both tubes and the pair of rockets slammed into the tank, blowing it to pieces.

Another phantom hovered down in front of the hog and Reaves kept driving, planning to run down the next squad that dropped out, only it was a group of four hunters that hit the dirt. He tried to swerve away from the lumbering beasts but one of them took a swipe at the vehicle with its enormous metal shield. The blow struck the side of the vehicle and it tumbled with all three Spartans, right off the edge of the ridge. Warren and Summer watched in horror as the hog slammed into the ground at the base of the ridge and they dashed out of their cover to get to the vehicle to help their comrades. Just as they entered the open, a second group of hunters was dropped right in their path. They dodged to the right as one of the creatures fired its arm canon. Summer rolled to her feet and took aim at the exposed neck of one of the hunters. She squeezed the trigger sending a round right through a gap in its armor. The creature dropped, twitching onto the ground.

Warren threw a grenade at a second and the explosive shredded the back of its legs immobilizing it. He then dashed towards the creature, diving under the creatures swing, he landed on his back and fired repeatedly into the back of his opponent. Meanwhile, Summer was forced to dodge two shots from the other two hunters. She sprinted over to a dead grunt that held another fuel rod gun. She took aim and blew the third creature to pieces. The fourth took aim at her just as Warren ran up behind it and drove both of his armored fists through the creatures exposed flesh. The alien collapsed writhing on the ground. The only one of the beasts that was truly dead was the third. The others were just knocked out of the fight. Each of them was actually a colony of wormlike creatures contained in a suit of armor.

The pair sprinted the rest of the way to where the hog had fallen to find that the rest of the team had already climbed out of the wreckage, unharmed thanks to their battle armor. Harrison removed the rocket launcher from the passenger's seat and reloaded the weapon. Then the team took off heading to the top of the ridge. The Spartan took aim with the launcher and fired, the pair of rockets blew two more hunters. The team quickly dispatched the other two under their concentrated fire.

"Crimson, Miller here, we are sending a bird to pull you out, move back to the top of the plateau for pick up." The Spartans voice sounded in their ears.

"Good copy, on the move. ETA on the bird?" Reaves replied and the team ran back towards their first objective, dispatching more enemy infantry along the way.

"Two mikes crimson. The bird can't wait on the LZ, there is way too much covenant air in the area."

"Roger, already on the move." The Spartans quickly covered the ground, stopping to dispatch a large group of suicide grunts and continuing on. They reached the top of the plateau just as the Pelican entered the valley. They waited as it flew towards them, they watched around them for any covenant anti air, it would be a bad day for every one if the bird was shot down.

Then as the pelican hovered down with its ramp open there was a tremendous flash. The ground shook and the Spartans stumbled, their ears ringing from the noise. They looked up to see what was left of the pelican falling all over the place. The team watched in horror as a covenant cruiser dropped down out of the clouds. They could do nothing but watch as their position was completely surrounded by descending phantoms and banshees.


End file.
